Hillerman, Tony - [Leaphorn & Chee 14] (16 page)

Leaphorn looked very interested in that. “How deep? Real tunnels, or
just places where people were taking a few wagonloads?”

“Nothing serious,” Chee said. “Just a place where somebody got a
sackful to heat the hogan.”

“When the Mormon settlers moved in the middle of the nineteenth
century they found the Navajos were already digging a little coal out
of exposed seams. So were the Utes. But the Mormons needed a lot more
to fire up smelters, so they developed some tunnel mines. Then the
Aneth field development came, and there was natural gas to burn. The
mines weren’t economical any longer. Some of them were filled in, and
some of them collapsed. But there must be some around there in one form
or another.”

“You’re thinking they’re hiding in a mine. I don’t know. Where I
grew up near Rough Rock people dug a little coal, but it was all just
shallow stuff. We called them dog-hole mines. Nothing anyone could hide
in.”

“That’s over in the Chuska Mountains,” Leap-horn said. “Volcanic
geology. Over by Gothic Creek Canyon it’s mostly formed by
sedimentation. Stratum after stratum.”

"True.”

“An old-timer in Mexican Water — old fella named Mortimer I think it
was—told me there used to be a slide cut down the cliff on the south
side of the San Juan across from Bluff. From the rimrock all the way
down. He said his folks would dig the coal out of seams in the canyon,
hoist it to the top, load it into oxcarts and then dump it down the
slide into carts down by the river. Then they’d ferry it across on a
cable ferry.”

Chee was feeling a little less skeptical. “When was that?”

“It was about forty years ago when he told me, I’d guess, but he was
talking about his parents when he was a child. I guess it was operating
in the 1880s, or thereabouts. I’d like to take a look at that old mine
if it still exists.”

“You think we could still find it? Maybe locate the wagon tracks and
trace them back? Trouble is, wagon tracks tend to get wiped out in a
hundred years.”

“I think we might find it another way,” Leaphorn said. “Did you ever
take a look at those notices posted on chapter-house bulletin boards?
The Environmental Protection Agency put them up. They have maps on them
showing where the EPA is going to be flying its copters back and forth
making surveys of old mine sites.”

“I’ve seen them,” Chee said. “But they’re surveying to map old
uranium-mine sites. Trying to locate radioactive dumps.”

“Basically, yes. But what the monitors show is spots with high
radiation levels. Coal seams out here are often associated with uranium
deposits, and the one Mortimer told me about must have been a pretty
big operation. I don’t have any business in this, but if I did, I’d
call the EPA down in Flagstaff and see if they have a mine-waste map
for that part of the Reservation.”

“I guess I could do that,” Chee said, sounding doubtful about it.

“Here’s the reason I’d be hopeful,” Leaphorn said. “Coal seams out
here vary a lot in depth. Some right on the surface, some hundreds of
feet down, and all depths between. You couldn’t haul it down the canyon
bottom to the river. Too rough. Too many barriers. I’m thinking the
Mormons must have got tired of hauling it up to the top after digging
it, and dug down to the seam from the top of the mesa. They hoisted it
to the top with some sort of elevator like they still do in most tunnel
mines.”

“Which would explain how our Ironhand could fly from bottom to top,”
Chee said. “How our Badger could have two holes.”

He picked up the telephone, dialed information, and asked for the
Environment Protection Agency number in Flagstaff.

On the fourth call and after the sixth or seventh explanation of
what he wanted to various people in various DOE and EPA offices in Las
Vegas, Nevada, and Flagstaff, Arizona, Sergeant Jim Chee found himself
referred to a New Mexico telephone number and enlightened.

“Call this number in Farmington,” the helpful person in Albuquerque
said. “That’s the project’s fixed base. Ask for either the fixed base
operator or the project manager." That number took him right back to
the Farmington Airport, no more than thirty miles or so from his aching
ankle.

“Bob Smith here,” the answering voice said.

Chee identified himself, rattled off what he was after. “Are you the
project manager?”

“I’m a combination technical guy on the helicopter and driver of the
refueling truck,” Smith said.

"And I’m the wrong guy to talk to for what you want. I’ll try to get
you switched to P.J. Collins.”

“What’s his title?”

“It’s her,” Smith said. “I think you’d call her the chief scientist
on this job. Hold on. I’ll get her.”

P.J. answered the phone by saying, “Yes,” in a tone that busy people
use. Chee explained again, hurrying it a little.

“Does this involve that casino robbery? Shooting those policemen?”

“Well, yes,” Chee said. “We’re checking on places they might be
hiding. We know there’s an old coal mine in Gothic Creek Canyon,
abandoned maybe eighty or ninety years ago, and we thought that perhaps
-"

“Good thinking,” P.J. said. “Especially the “perhaps” part. That
coal up in that part of the world is uraniferous. Well, all coal tends
to be a little radioactive, but that area is hotter than most. But
that’s a lot of years for the radioactive stuff to get washed away, or
lose its punch. However, if you can give me a general idea of where the
mine might be, I’ll tell you if we’ve surveyed that area. If we have, I
can get Jesse to check our maps in the van and see what hot spots
showed up. If any.”

“Great,” Chee said. “We think this mine was dug into the east slope
of Gothic Creek Canyon. It would be somewhere in a ten-mile stretch of
the canyon from where it runs into the San Juan southward.”

“Well, that’s good,” P.J. said. That’s on the Navajo Reservation,
and that’s what our contract covers. The Department of Energy has hired
us to help ’em clean up the mess they left hunting uranium. They
provide the copters and the pilots, and we provide the technicians.”

“Do you think you’ve surveyed there yet?”

“Possibly today,” she said. “We’ve been up there south of Bluff and
Montezuma Creek this week. If they didn’t cover that today, they
probably will tomorrow.”

Chee had been feeling foolish during most of his earlier telephone
conversations, his skepticism about this idea reviving. Now he found
himself getting excited. P.J. seemed to be taking the notion seriously.

“Can I give you my number? Have you call me back? I’ll be reachable
tonight and tomorrow and however long it takes.”

“Where you calling from?”

“Shiprock.”

“The copter will be coming in about an hour or so. Calling it quits
for the day and downloading all the data they’ve collected. Why don’t
you drive on over and see for yourself?”

Why not, indeed
. “I’ll be
there,” he said.

Chee had given up on putting on his left sock, and was easing a
sandal on that foot when he heard a vehicle bumping down his access
road. It stopped, the west wind blew a puff of dust past his screen
door, and a few moments later Officer Bernadette Manuelito appeared.
She was carrying what seemed to be a tray covered with a white cloth,
holding the cloth against the breeze with one hand, tapping on the
screen with the other.

“
Ya’eeh te’h
,” she said.
“How’s the ankle? Would you like
something to eat?”

Chee said he would. But not right now. He had a can’t-wait errand to
run.

Bernie had been looking at the sandal on his left foot, frowning at
it. It was not a pretty sight. She shook her head.

“You can’t go anywhere,” she said. “You can’t drive. What do you
think you’re doing?” She put the tray on the table.

“It’s just over to the Farmington Airport,” Chee said. “Of course I
can drive. Why not? You use your right foot for the gas pedal and the
brake.”

“Take off the sandal,” Officer Manuelito said. “We’ll wrap it up in
the bandage again. If you think it can’t wait, I’ll drive you over
there.”

Which was, of course, what happened.

The woman who Chee presumed was P.J. turned out to be the same
small, slightly sunburned blonde he’d noticed at the helicopter when
he’d come to talk to Jim Edgar. She was standing beside the craft
holding a black metal box, the box being linked by an insulated cable
to the big white pod mounted on the copter’s landing skid. When she
noticed Chee limping up, her expression was skeptical.
Not
surprising,
he thought. He was wearing his worn and wrinkled
‘stay
at home’ jeans and a blue T-shirt on which some of the mutton stew
Bernie had brought him had splashed when she drove too fast over a
bumpy place.

Chee introduced Officer Bernadette Manuelito, who looked
uncharacteristically neat and spiffy in her uniform, and himself.

P.J. smiled. “I’m Patti Collins. Just a minute until I get this data
unloaded.”

Jim Edgar was leaning on the doorframe of his hangar watching them.
He held up his hand in salute, shouted, “Heard you found Old Man
Timms’s airplane,” and disappeared back in the direction of his
workbench.

P.J. was unjacking the cable. “You got here fast,” she said. “Let’s
take this into the lab and see what we have.”

The lab was a standard-looking Winnebago mobile home, its white
exterior badly in need of washing but the interior immaculate.

“Have a seat somewhere,” P.J. said. She connected her black metal
box to an expensive-looking console built into the back of the vehicle
and did those incomprehensible things technicians do.

The console made computer sounds. The attached printer began spewing
out a roll of paper. P.J. studied it. “Well, now,” she said. “I don’t
know if this is going to help you much, but it’s interesting.” She
detached a couple of feet of paper and laid it on a large scale U.S.
Geological Survey map spread across the tabletop where Chee and Bernie
were sitting.

“See this,” she said, and traced her finger down a tight squiggle of
lines on the computer printout. “That coordinates with this." She
traced the same fingertip down Gothic Creek on the USGS map.

It was meaningless to Chee. He said, “Oh.”

“It shows there’s been a distribution of radioactive material
downstream from here,” P.J. said, tapping her finger on the
h
in Gothic Creek on the map legend.

“Would that suggest the mine waste dump might have been there?” Chee
asked. “That would be interesting.”

“Yeah,” P.J. said, studying the printout again. “Now my problem is
whether it’s interesting enough to divert the copter a couple of miles
tomorrow to get a closer scan.”

“It would be a big help to us,” Chee said.

“I’ll talk to the pilots,” P.J. said. “It would just take another
twenty minutes or so. And if it’s hot enough, we ought to get it on the
map anyway.”

“Would there be room for me to go along?”

P.J. looked at him skeptically. “You were limping along on that
cane. What’s the deal with your ankle?”

“I sprained it,” Chee said. “It’s just about healed.”

She still looked skeptical. “You ridden in a copter before?”

“Twice,” Chee said. “I didn’t enjoy it either time, but I’ve got a
good stomach for motion sickness.”

“I’ll let you know,” she said. “Give me the number where you’ll be
tonight. If it’s go, I’ll call you and tell you where to meet the
refueling truck.”

For once Chee came out lucky with the timing. As promised, P.J. had
called him. Yes, they would revise their schedule for the next day a
bit and divert a few miles to do a follow-up low-level check of the
Gothic Creek drainage. He could go along. Everything had been more or
less cleared and approved. However, it was one of those ‘less said the
better’ affairs. Why run the risk that some big shot far removed from
the scene might suspect this rational interpretation of regulations
could cause trouble? The most economical and convenient time to do this
diversion would be the final flight of the day. Chee should be at the
refueling truck at 2:40 P.M., at which time the truck would be at the
same place Chee had seen it previously, parked beside the road leading
to the Timms place on Casa Del Eco Mesa.

“Thanks,” Chee said. “I’ll be there waiting.”

And he was. He’d gotten down to the office in the morning, caught up
on paperwork, handled some chores for Captain Largo, had lunch, bought
himself some snack stuff (including an extra apple to offer to Rosner)
and headed west for the mesa. By two-fifteen, he and Rosner were
sitting in the shade of the truck snacking and watching the copter
land. It was the same big white Bell with radiation-sensor pods on its
landing skids, and the pilot put it down far enough away to avoid
blasting them with dust.

Rosner drove the truck over. He introduced Chee to pilot, copilot
and technician, and started refueling.

“P.J. told me something about what you’re looking for,” the pilot
said. “I’m not sure she had it right. Mine opening up on the canyon
wall. Is that it?”

The pilot’s name was Tom McKissack. He looked a weather-beaten sixty
or so, and Chee remembered P.J. had said McKissack was one of those
army pilots who’d survived the risky business of rescuing wounded Air
Mobile Division grunts from various Vietnam battles. He introduced Chee
to the copilot, a younger fellow named Greg DeMoss, another army copter
veteran, and to Jesse, who would be doing the technical work. All three
looked tired, dusty and not particularly thrilled by this detour.

“Sounds like P.J. had it right,” Chee said. “We’re trying to locate
the mouth of an old Mormon coal mine abandoned back in the eighteen
eighties. We think it has a mouth fairly high up the canyon wall.
Probably on a shelf of some sort. And then on top, maybe the remains of
a tipple structure where they hoisted the coal up and dumped it.”